What is Enterprise
?
Enterprise – Ready for Prime Time?
This presentation summarizes AIIMs research from all perspectives including technology, business drivers and market dynamics.
AIIM Training & Education
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
441 respondents, 80+ pages, 70+ charts/figures
Released Q1 2008
This AIIM
Market IQ focuses on a genre of new technologies and related business models that enable rapid
and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise
known as Enterprise .
AIIM used two basic sources of input in constructing this report: the accumulated experience and ongoing
market analysis work performed by the AIIM Market Intelligence group and a survey that the group developed
and administered. The survey was taken by 441 individuals between January 5 and January 19, 2008. It should
be noted that the survey results are reported in aggregate (. AIIM members and nonmembers). Survey demographics
can be found in the appendix.
In addition, the AIIM Market Intelligence group received guidance and input from a panel of advisors in developing
both the survey and this report. AIIM deeply appreciates the work of the panel, which consisted of: Patti
Anklam, Stowe Boyd, Steven Mandzik, Andrew McAfee, Eric Tsui, and David Weinberger. (For brief bios on
these advisors refer to the
About The Authors page in this Market IQ.)
This
Market IQ covers the concept of Enterprise from multiple perspectives, providing a thorough education
on the topic. In order to achieve a balanced understanding of Enterprise , the reader is encouraged to read the
report in its entirety, in the order presented. It has been structured into eight sections, each providing a specific
perspective on Enterprise .
What Do You See as the Current Shortcomings of Enterprise ?
As we’ve seen earlier in this module as well, lack of understanding abounds, and given that the term Enterprise was only formulate in 2006, that should be expected. Between the rise of Web , Andrew McAfee’s continuing work, Wikinomics, and other pushes in the market, the first two major shortcomings should begin to fade close to the technical concerns in this graph.
For the point of the “Immaturity of Technology” standpoint – given that a primary benefit of Enterprise is this tendency to deliver less complex systems, and to build upon these more streamlined tools, the maturity is all quite relative. Arguably, maturity can happen much more quickly with this toolset than most typical enterprise systems, and agin, that was a reason we spent some time covering both Lean Thinking and Agile Development, which are very heavily focused on continuous improvement over time.
Defining Enterprise
Technology that enables people to collaborate and/or form online communities
The application of Web to the enterprise
A new set of technologies, models and methods used to develop and deliver business software
The next generation of knowledge management
The ability to snap together software services to enable business agility
The next generation of collaboration
The democratization of information and content-centric systems
The use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers
A user-centric approach to working with enterprise-focused content systems
The next generation of enterprise content management (ECM)
Exposing the collective wisdom of a networked workforce, partner and customer base
Leveraging
metatags
to tap into collective wisdom
As part of the work we've done as the Market Intelligence unit of AIIM, we executed a specific research project, called the Market Intelligence Quarterly, or Market IQ on Enterprise , in Q1 of 2008.
Our premise was that Enterprise stands out from the noise as a distinct area of concern, but just how much concern, exactly?
Were people thinking about Enterprise , and specifically to this slide, how were they defining it? Broadly, narrowly, technology only, business/technology mix? Is it "just Web " in the Enterprise? Buzzword? Exactly what is it, and what are the potential business benefits?
Let's examine the top 4 responses, to see where people were coming from.
Technology that enables people to collaborate and/or form online communities
The application of Web to the enterprise
A new set of technologies, models and methods used to develop and deliver business software
The next generation of knowledge management
The ability to snap together software services to enable business agility
The next generation of collaboration
The democratization of information and content-centric systems
The use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers
A user-centric approach to working with enterprise-focused content systems
The next generation of enterprise content management (ECM)
Exposing the collective wisdom of a networked workforce, partner and customer base
Leveraging
metatags
to tap into collective wisdom
Defining Enterprise
In the Market IQ on Enterprise research, there were twelve options provided to the respondents, as shown here.
This was a single choice question, and while there were responses to each of the definitions, the majority of responses fell into the four items shown with checkboxes.
Those were:
Technology that enables people to collaborate and/or form online communities
The application of Web to the enterprise
The use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers
The next generation of enterprise content management (ECM)
Of course, there is a certain amount of truth to all of this, and some history that goes with each of the prime responses.
Let's dive into each one of these top four responses specifically, and explore each definition, as well as it's pros and cons.
Re-Defining Enterprise
“A system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities in the extended enterprise”
As we close out this section, let’s sum up, and propose an alternative definition to refine our discussion.
In the 441 survey respondents to our Market IQ on Enterprise , 4 definitions emerged as the most popular definitions, and we examined the ways in which those were both dead on, and slightly off.
Enterprise is on a constantly moving an evolutionary path, coming from a number of business and technology backgrounds, colliding to create this revolution which we’re now calling Enterprise .
The worlds of structured data and unstructured content, are, more than ever, coming together, and are more accessible and malleable than ever before.
As an alternative definition to Enterprise , and we believe, a step further on the evolutionary path for the definition…
(see definition)
Keys to this:
System
Web-based
Rapid/agile
Collaboration/information-sharing
Emergence
Integration
Extended enterprise
It’s a collection of capabilities as a coherent system, that can be used in many ways, only one of which is “collaboration”, for many audiences, that has a bias to quick rather than slow interactions with the people, processes and information in the system.
Defining Enterprise Frameworks
Basic fundamental structures that provide a way of viewing the structure of Enterprise
What Am I Getting Into?
Foundational to System Design/Decisions
Functional Requirements/Functions in Context
SLATES
FLATNESSES
SLATES
Graphic Source: Dion Hinchliffe, ZDNet
Frameworks for Enterprise 2 0
As stated previously, Professor McAfee offers a framework,which goes by the mnemonic SLATES, that outlines the key characteristics of Enterprise and provides a finer-grained definition of Enterprise .
SLATES
SLATES stands for Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, and Signals.
Search denotes that Enterprise content should be
subject to discoverability. Search technology must be provided to enable both facilitated and automated location of content, so that it can be reused and leveraged. This aspect stresses therefore not only the ability to find content, but also to collaborate around it and incorporate it into other work processes and intellectual endeavors.
Links refers to the ability to create interconnections
between content. This functionality ranges from content integration (., mashups, described in more detail in
Section 3: Technology Complements and Alternatives) to pointers, such as hypertext links.
Links make it easier to repurpose content and garner greater value from it, as well as create navigation paths through content.
Authorship is largely focused on usability. The premise
of authorship, as defined by McAfee, is that every worker should have access to Enterprise platforms, without any required training. Interaction with the system should be low-barrier.
Tags refers to the use of metatags in dynamic fashion
to identify the relevancy of tagged content. Tags create a taxonomy, or several taxonomies, and can be combined to create a Folksonomy (See
Section 3: Technology Complements and Alternatives for more detail.)
Tags can be used to capture individual and collective opinions on the value of content, a form of knowledge in itself, which can also be used as a navigational path through content in a manner similar to links.
Extensions leverage technology to uncover patterns
of user activity. These patterns are then provided as further insight into the knowledge base. Extensions can extend a search into other areas based on similar searches and user behavior, (., “Users who have searched on this topic, have also looked at this.”)
Signals represents the use of technology to push
content to interested parties. Signals makes the Enterprise system proactively collaborative. For example, users can subscribe to a particular Web site and as changes are made to the site, the new content
is pushed to the subscribers automatically, keeping them in the know.
FLATNESSES
Graphic Source: Dion Hinchliffe, ZDNet
Positioned as Enterprise -
Demonstrates Speed of Market/Nascence
Builds on SLATES
Adds Outcomes to Capabilities
Focuses on egalitarian nature
Pun intended
FLATNESSES Focus
Graphic Source: Dion Hinchliffe, ZDNet
FLATNESSES
The SLATES framework was expanded upon by Dion Hinchcliffe in 2007. Hinchcliffe’s framework by definition fully encompasses SLATES, but adds four additional key characteristics to Enterprise . Like McAfee, Hinchcliffe developed a mnemonic, FLATNESSES, to illustrate his framework. FLATNESSES stands for Freeform, Links, Authorship, Tagging, Network-oriented, Extensions, Search, Social, Emergence and Signals. Thus, the four characteristics added by this framework are Freeform, Network-oriented, Social, and Emergence.
Freeform stresses that authorship, described as
low-barrier in SLATES, should be “no barrier”, . free from a learning curve or restrictions. It also includes open, low-barrier approaches to signals and integration (modular programming) and stresses the need for freeform interfaces to functionality.
Network-oriented states that not only must the
technology platform be Web-based, but that all content must be Web-addressable. Thus, networkoriented provides additional rules on authorship and links and proposes the potential development of a blogosphere within the enterprise.
Social stresses transparency (to access), diversity
(in content and community members) and openness (to structure) need to be core values of the Enterprise environment. It is interesting to note that in this facet, the cultural side of Enterprise is stressed as
much as the technical.
Emergence stresses that the platform must provide
approaches that detect and leverage the collective wisdom of the community. This is perhaps a bit redundant, as SLATES does identify functionality that includes emergence.
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
Defining Enterprise Techniques
Agents
Knowledge Monitoring
Intermediation
Emergence
Feedback
Tagging
Voting
Social Networks/Analysis
Social Computing
Social Software
Asynchronous Communication
Collaboration
Here we present an overview of the key techniques to Enterprise , which are abstracted out of the specific implementations these techniques might take as features and functions when deployed as technology. Let’s explore each one in detail.
Overview of Technologies
Bulletin Boards
E-mail
Instant Messaging (IM)/Short Message Service (SMS)/Text Messaging
Discussion Forums
Chat Rooms
Web/tele/videoconferencing
Static Web
The overall list of technologies that appear in the era are as you see here: bulletin boards, email, instant messaging, short message service or SMS, and text messaging, discussion forums, chat rooms, various kinds of conferencing, and the static web.
Overview of Technologies & FLATNESSES
© AIIM | All rights reserved
Collectively these technologies represent a one-way channel approach to broad communication. With the exception of bulletin boards, they are still widely used. They are not, however, considered part of Enterprise because they are focused on one-way channels, have little to no visibility and commonality—meaning that they are not easily discoverable, especially outside those individuals specifically being channeled—
and offer little to no support for extensions (as defined in the SLATES model in Section 1). These technologies are mentioned in this report,
however, due to their prevalence, and, while they fall short of meeting the functional criteria of SLATES and FLATNESSES, they do offer popular, easy-toaccess (. already installed) approaches to providing some of the criteria. Thus, they can be positioned as stop-gap approaches to functionality, and/or used to augment Enterprise platforms. For example, instant messaging, a technology, can be used simultaneously with a wiki (a technology defined later in this report), as a way for the collaborative wiki authors, to “discuss” proposed changes and other
related issues. E-mail, (a technology) might be used as a notification mechanism for changes in a wiki or new posts to a blog, (a technology defined later in this section).
Overview of Technologies
Web Services
Collaborative filtering
Social networking
Social network analysis
Agents
Portals/Intranets
Dynamic Web
This is purely an overview slide of what we would call the technologies. Web services, collaborative filtering, social networking, social network analysis, agents, portals and intranets, and the dynamic web.
Overview of Technologies & FLATNESSES
While technologies are stop-gap substitutes for Enterprise , technologies can be fully functional solutions. These technologies are not considered part of Enterprise because in some cases the barrier to involvement is moderate to high (. requires technical
know-how and proprietary tools). While some provide emergence and extensions, (., collaborative filtering social networking and social network
analysis) they fail to simultaneously provide the other criteria of SLATES and FLATNESSES (as described in Section 1). The technologies are mentioned in this report because they provide some of the criteria of SLATES and FLATNESSES. They can provide platforms on which Enterprise systems are integrated (., wikis and blogs positioned on a corporate intranet/portal), and/or serve as partial solutions and augmentation to Enterprise .
Web Service:
“Software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.” – Source: adapted from W3C and A standard means of interoperating, by the use of XML, between different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks.
Collaborative Filtering:
A method of determining the relevance and/or “value” of content or other contributions by the actions of individuals. May be influenced by implicit actions (such as purchasing an item, indicating “popularity”), or explicit actions (such as a ranking or rating, whether textual or via a rating mechanism such as 1-5 star reviews).
Social Networking:
Dynamic “relationship” (friend, co-worker, family, employer, etc.) building, Social Networking is foremost about person-to-person connections, and not necessarily “community” or collaboration. Without being linked or integrated into a communication platform
(., discussion forum), the value of being able to use the established network is harder to achieve, as discussions are taken out of context into another channel. Facebook and LinkedIn are prime examples of consumer-facing Social Networking sites.
Social Network Analysis (SNA):
A toolkit and set of methodologies used to uncover the patterns of interactions within a social network.
In an organizational setting, SNA may be used to uncover “how work is actually done” vs. a traditional organizational chart of the division of labor. It may be used to identify bottlenecks, or hidden key players who facilitate work outside of what is “normally” seen as their role. The outcome of SNA is frequently a visualization of the network, showing the numbers of connections between participants, the strength of connections, and in some cases, the volume of interactions (such as e-mail, phone, etc.).
Agent:
Search/query functionality that runs in background 24/7, allowing relevant information to be delivered to users as it arrives, and can filter information according to user preferences.
Dynamic Web:
Addition of multimedia, interactive, or database-driven information to Web sites, as opposed to manually or “static” pages, frequently spoken of as “brochureware.”
Enterprise Technologies
Wikis
Blogs
Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Mashups
Podcasting
Social Voting/Ranking
Social Bookmarking
Social Networking
Overview of Technologies & FLATNESSES
These are the primary technical focus of this
Market IQ.
They represent a new breed of Web-based technologies that provide platform-based approaches to creating and supporting communities, along with sharing content and processes. Implementation of the technology is rapid and agile. All provide some ability to garner collective intelligence (also known as emergence). They fully support the SLATES and FLATNESSES frameworks, but each provides a different type of functionality.
Web Service:
“Software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network.” – Source: adapted from W3C and A standard means of interoperating, by the use of XML, between different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks.
Blog:
Short for Web Log, a light-weight authoring platform, typically focused on a single-author model, primarily textual, although can include essentially any type of “multimedia” content as well. Commenting or other interaction methods are typically provided for audience participation. The lowered barrier of AUTHORSHIP with blogging platforms is credited with the more rapid adoption of such toolsets, versus a traditional Web authoring system.
Wiki
(Hawaiian for quick) Server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web content using a browser. It supports hyperlinks, has a simple text syntax (at minimum) for creating new pages and cross-links between internal pages on the fly. Contributors can edit content as well as the organization of content in a wiki platform. Wikis are frequently associated with the AUTHORSHIP aspects of the SLATES/FLATNESSES models
RSS:
Really Simple Syndication. The most popular/prevalent SIGNAL from SLATES/FLATNESSES in Enterprise . Standards-based, and formatted as XML for easy consumption and transformation by feed readers, aggregators, dashboards, or mashup solutions. RSS (and ATOM, a variant feed type) are pull-based rather than push-based (as compared to e-mail, for example) communication streams
Podcasting:
Short for “iPod Broadcasting,” a term coined by Adam Curry, former VJ for MTV. Sometimes called “The Multimedia blog” format. What separates a true “podcast” from simple embedded audio/video clips, is that a podcast channel may be subscribed to using a feed, such as RSS or ATOM, so that users can consume this content by pulling that content rather than being sent from a broadcaster out to a recipient.
Voting:
One of the simplest forms of social interactions in information systems, providing a yes/no, thumbs up/ down aspect of feedback that can provide visual or other indicators to other users, as well as in manipulating the ranking/ordering of presented information.
Social Bookmarking:
A form of Tagging, done by individuals, to “remember in public” resources (based on URLs), and which communicates context and categorization that may not have been seen through a more formalized taxonomy-driven viewpoint. Popularized via the service, .
And what can we achieve with these new technologies ?
Positioning Technology Alternatives To Business Needs
Just provide as an extra copy up front
Use the FLATNESSES model as an exercise - have them compare their needs to the FLATNESSES capability
What Technologies Fall into Your
Definition of an Enterprise Platform?
Our survey measured the state of the market in many ways. The bulk of these findings and insights are the focus of
Section 4: State of the Market of this Market IQ.
But two of the survey’s findings are discussed here so that the current reality of technology awareness and how this affects Enterprise strategy development can be appreciated. While survey answers showed a lack of agreement over the definition of Enterprise (See Figure 1, and the accompanying analysis in
Section 1: Defining Enterprise ), from a technology component perspective,
respondents showed great consistency.
When asked to identify the component technologies that fall into their definition of an Enterprise platform, survey responses honed in on Enterprise technologies (., wikis, social networking, blogs, search, RSS, social bookmarking, and mashups) as those most aligned (., a “bullseye fit”) with an Enterprise platform.
But perhaps just as telling is the fact that no technology was predominately identified as “not needed.” Also, related technologies, technologies and technologies fared well ranking as being of peripheral value to the platform or listed between peripheral and “bullseye.” Search scored very highly as a bullseye component (which is perhaps explained by the commentary on search made earlier in the report). There were some exceptions. The Enterprise technology, social voting/ranking did not fare as well, with 39% indicating it is a bullseye fit, and 27% listing
it somewhere between a bullseye fit and peripheral. It ranked below none-core technologies such as collaborative filtering and portals.
More dramatically, respondents singled out podcasting as the one Enterprise technology that has not yet been embraced as a “standard” part of an Enterprise platform. Only 28% saw it as a bullseye fit. This is likely because podcasting creates multimedia content. Many organizations may be inclined to first get a handle on text and images before embracing multimedia in a full-scale manner.
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Enterprise Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
How Critical is Enterprise to Your Organization's Overall Business Goals/Success?
Enterprise 2 0 Strategically Poised, Tactically Understood
This analysis of the business drivers behind Enterprise begins with a high-level assessment of whether the
concept is strategically important within most organizations. Survey responses offer a positive and compelling
picture in this regard. When asked the degree to which Enterprise is critical to their overall business goals
and success, 44% of respondents indicated that it is imperative or significant. Another 27% positioned Enterprise
as having average impact on business goals and success. Only 29% felt it had minimal or no impact on
business success.
These results strongly position Enterprise as a technology and practice that is likely to have the attention
of senior management, and one that is well understood and being acted upon strategically, given its missioncritical
importance.
Business Drivers for Enterprise
Personal computers heralded individual productivity
Participation today exposes individual work more broadly
Market Drivers Behind
Enterprise
2.
0
Knowledge Management
Innovation Management
User Expectations
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
Web
Business Trends
Technology Trends
Source: AIIM Market Intelligence
So what are some the market drivers behind ? There's clearly a business trend aspect as shown on the left: Business Intelligence, Knowledge Management, innovation management, and user expectations. And then there's a technology trend, which we've explored a bit already but we're going to explore all of these in a little more detail to understand where all this came from and how does it lead us to .
What are YOU Trying to Accomplish with Enterprise ?
Again, we're going through the findings, and first taking a look at the overall responses and comparing and contrasting specific age group slicings where there happened to be differences from the overall findings.
In this case, the question was, What are YOU trying to accomplish with Enterprise ? As you may recall, we discussed this in the very first section of the Practitioner collaboration was the most prominent and highly rated end goal for Enterprise at 69%.
Following that was essentially a three-way tie of:
Raise Awareness of "What We Know"
Increase Agility/Responsiveness
and Faster Communication
And then the responses fade away.
We'll now contrast this to the responses from a view of Millennials, Gen X, and Boomers, and how they align or deviate from the average curve.
How Well Suited is Enterprise for the Following Groups/People?
To the question of "How Well Suited is
Enteprrise
for the Following Groups/People?" and this is a view across the entire survey population, the most popular choice at nearly 50% was for the "Distributed Workforce."
Between Don
Tapscott's
models for new business and Enterprise , and the main concepts behind wikis and social networking, as two examples, this makes quite a bit of sense. As you can see, the clustering of responses is more around the team level, once we move below that initial response. It's heartening to see that Individuals are on the low end of responses, as it is hard to take advantage of emergence, social features, and collaboration, when you are an Island of Me.
Let’s take a look at how this changes when we slice it by age group.
How Likely is Your Organization to Utilize Enterprise for the Following Business Practices?
While Enterprise was seen as best fitting distributed workforces and large teams, a significant level of responses indicated it is also applicable to small teams, global enterprises, and startups. Collaboration with partners (a somewhat newer business model that breaks down traditional walls between the respective organizations), also received a 68% ranking—very well-suited for Enterprise . Such findings lend more insight into the potentially evolving role of Enterprise from simple collaboration to a foundation for newer business models. While Enterprise is viewed as universally appealing to many groups, it is not seen as particularly aligned to any specific business processes. When asked to rank the likelihood of
Enterprise being utilized by specific business processes, survey respondents did not rank a single application higher than 30% as highly likely. Research and Development (R&D), a business area characterized by collaboration and knowledge exchange, did achieve a 56% rating above “neutral.” Marketing, IT and customer support each ranked 50% above “neutral.” Given the otherwise positive perspectives expressed by this survey population, these findings may indicate that best practices for Enterprise have not yet emerged, or that the universal appeal of collaboration does not make any one business area stand out as “a obvious must-have, above the rest.” The poorer ranking of Litigation/Legal (the highest ranked “Highly Unlikely”), may be tied to the risk often associated with “legal content.” Yet, corporate legal departments have been collaborating with private counsel with extranets for several years now.
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Enterprise Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
What is Your Level of Involvement with the
Following Technologies?
Older technologies are more widely deployed, and it takes time for market maturity to cut across all industries.
Which Groups are the Drivers of Enterprise in Your Organization?
As discussed in Section 3, strategic use and understanding of Enterprise leans more heavily towards ad hoc
usage rather than strategic deployment, but as noted previously, that is quite typical in an early market. In addition
users are driving early adoption of Enterprise . Examination of where the primary interest of Enterprise
is occurring shows that part of the bias is due to the large “user-driven” force of Enterprise adoption. As
illustrated in Figure 27 users edge out “Senior/Executive Business Managers” by 51% to 41%.
When respondents were required to point out a single group driving Enterprise , however, these same groups
tied (24%), for a combined total of just under 50% (see Figure 28). While many proponents and champions of
Enterprise discuss the benefits of collective wisdom emerging from the “bottom-up” (users) of an organization,
it would seem that Enterprise may have a strong (yet nascent) following from both the top (Senior and
Executive Managers) and from the bottom, which, particularly for an early market such as this, is a relatively
rare phenomenon. If the remaining disconnects between top and bottom can be addressed, this will be very
good news indeed for all who believe in the potential that Enterprise holds.
Where is Enterprise Predominately Used in Your Organization?
As we move from the groups that are driving Enterprise use and examine how it's actually being used, project teams, are the largest percentage response, as you might expect.
I say "as you expect" because as we had seen in the previous chart discussing the types of groups that were "well suited" for the use of Enterprise , with the grouping of various types of teams in a fairly narrow band. That response, and the #1 choice of the Distributed Workforce, in general point towards more of a project-orientation rather than a global, systemic, or enterprise-wide scenario.
That cross-project/departmental use came in 2nd place also aligns with the earlier comment, particularly from the Millennials age slice, tha "silo-busting" and extending the idea of the team and the organization was a key issue.
True enterprise-wide deployments SHOULD be rare at this point, as this is certainly an early and emerging market. There will always be the very early adopters and innovators who are pointing the way, and fully embracing new trends, but if enterprise-wide had shown to be the #1 response here, I would have been quite shocked.
In Your Organization, Which Departments are Primary Users of Enterprise Functionality?
To this question “In Your Organization, Which Departments are Primary Users of Enterprise Functionality?” – which was a multiple choice response, we have an echo of several of the previous charts. We are showing minimal use across the board, or “ALL Departments.” A very large swell in the IT department, which again, particularly for Wikis, might be expected, given the history of Wikis as a developers’ collaboration tool.
Interestingly enough, however, is that the other primary response from the graph on Slide 16, where we asked “How Likely is Your Organization to Utilize Enterprise for the Following Business Practices?” did not see similar peaks along with IT, and that IT had a distinctly larger response to this question than when phrased differently and more finely sliced in the previous question, perhaps because in that question we were looking at business practices, which may be spread out across various departments, rather than departments unto themselves.
Nonetheless, the levels are roughly inline with the previous questions, and moreover, are indicate again, that the more customer-facing roles, such as marketing and customer support, as well as the “innovation-facing” roles, such as R&D are the more likely to be users of Enterprise . Clearly, however, we are early into full adoption of Enterprise , whether at a departmental level, or across the enterprise.
Do the Enterprise Applications (. Wiki, Blogs) in Your Organization Each Have a Champion or Leader?
There is a lot of talk surrounding Enterprise tools of this lack of a need to have champions, or to have “top-down” support to enjoy some success with these capabilities. Concepts like “The Starfish Organization” or the “Headless Organization” are frequently mentioned, and they certainly have their points, and according to research done in these areas (not by us), in some situations can work. As we’ll see in a moment, though, there seems to be quite a lot of doubt about that.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents (narrowed to only those who have implemented Enterprise ) state that their Enterprise applications
do not
have a specific champion or leader. Some would argue that Enterprise does not require championing, as it is more about group participation, collective intelligence, and the emergence of wisdom from these interactions. That would lead one to believe that Enterprise “flattens” the organization entirely, and perhaps all participants are equal.
Do You Feel it is Necessary to Have a Champion for Enterprise Projects?
When asked whether it is
necessary
to have a champion, again only for those who have actually deployed Enterprise , the resounding response is absolutely,
yes
(84%).
Whether this is past history and experience reasserting itself, we don’t know at this point. Traditional technology solutions have generally tended to require champions and careful planning on the bottom-up level, and specifically, top-level executive support, perhaps even in the form of a mandate, to overcome organizational inertia and a tendency to resist change.
Those solutions, however, have tended to be complex and expensive, and driven by a “business-first” rather than “user-first” mindset, which as I’ve mentioned previously, can cause users to revolt and avoid the systems if at all possible.
Just as Lean Thinking has changed the mindset of manufacturers from a mass-production to a mass-customization world, and from “push it on the market” to a demand-driven (pull) model, Enterprise should (if done well, and perhaps with some luck) lead to a similar pull from the users (employee, partners, etc.) to demand greater levels of access and participation, rather than being forced to use systems that seem to only add to their work levels, rather than to enhance their professional capabilities.
In the end, though, while some organizations may have realized this promise, it would seem the vast majority of respondents believe that time has not yet come to pass in their own organization.
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Enterprise Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
Source:
How Critical is Enterprise to Your Organization's Overall Business Goals/Success?
As seen in Figure 45, Gen Xers are most aggressive regarding the criticality of Enterprise to business success.
Although some Millennials (6%) position Enterprise 20 in similarly crucial terms, overall their opinion is not
much different from Boomers.
Millennials and Boomers are virtually identical concerning the overall significance of Enterprise to business
success. Although no Boomers ranked Enterprise as critical to business success 38% did rank it as significant.
This is nearly identical to the 37% of Millennials that ranked it as either critical or significant.
SPLIT
What are YOU Trying to Accomplish with Enterprise ?
In general, the overall trend remains the same, as we break out this question by the three age groups.
From the top of the chart, the age groups stay roughly equivalent to each other, but as we jump down to "Faster Communication" you'll see that the Millennials pop out from the findings. Given that Millennials are the group known for hyper multi-tasking, and being always on the go, I suppose this shouldn't be surprising, but as a nearly 20% swing versus Gen X and Boomers, it is fairly dramatic.
Millennials *and* Gen X appear to value Innovation and Time To Market (TTM) in much greater degrees than Boomers, and Millennials also stand out in seeing Enterprise affecting the "Reduction of IT Costs" as a major goal with Enterprise .
So, with regards to this particular question, some of the stereotypes appear to be playing out as expected, with at least a few of the goals. As we examine some of the future findings however, there are some surprises in store.
Millennials vs Boomers
Some differences exist
No evidence of
dramatic or polar
differences that
warrant special
handling
Strategic leverage
vs. personalized
approaches
Source:
The Criticality of Culture
Corporate Culture
Asset
Hindrance
Assessing Culture
"Do not change culture, change habits. The first step in changing habits is to define what results are needed. This is basic, but requires sharper definition; the plans have to be meticulously conceptualized, executed and
monitored regularly."
"Where within our own system
do we do this already?"
Peter
Drucker
Decentralization and simplification
.
Drucker
discounted the
command and control
model and asserted that companies work best when they are decentralized. According to
Drucker
, corporations tend to produce too many products, hire employees they don't need (when a better solution would be
outsourcing
), and expand into economic sectors that they should avoid.
A profound skepticism of
macroeconomic
theory.
Drucker
contended that economists of all schools fail to explain significant aspects of modern economies.
Respect of the worker.
Drucker
believed that employees are assets and not liabilities. He taught that knowledge workers are the essential ingredients of the modern economy.
A belief in what he called "the sickness of government."
Drucker
made nonpartisan claims that government is often unable or unwilling to provide new services that people need or want, though he believed that this condition is not inherent to democracy.
The need for "planned abandonment."
Businesses and governments have a natural human tendency to cling to "yesterday's successes" rather than seeing when they are no longer useful.
A belief that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure.
[18]
The
need for community
. Early in his career,
Drucker
predicted the "end of economic man" and advocated the creation of a "plant community" where individuals' social needs could be met. He later acknowledged that the plant community never materialized, and by the 1980s, suggested that volunteering in the non-profit sector was the key to fostering a healthy society where people found a sense of belonging and civic pride.
The need to manage business by balancing a variety of needs and goals, rather than subordinating an institution to a single value.
[
19]
[20]
This concept of
management by objectives
forms the keynote of his 1954 landmark "
The Practice of Management
".
[21]
A company's primary responsibility is to serve its customers.
Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company's continued existence.
[22]
An Organization should have a proper way of executing all its business processes.
Objectives
Defining Enterprise
Technology Compliments and Alternatives
Why Enterprise Now?
The State of the Market
Generational and Cultural Impacts
Worker Models
Defining Enterprise 2 0
This section introduces the subject, provides a definition, and compares it with older approaches to collaboration
and integration.
Technology Complements and Alternatives
This section traces the evolution of Enterprise technical functionality across three distinct periods. Specific
point technologies are identified in each period, culminating with the identification and definition of a family
of point solutions that collectively comprise Enterprise .
Why Enterprise 2 0 Now
This section looks at the business and technology trends that have led to the emergence and adoption of Enterprise
, including insight into new worker models enabled through Enterprise .
The State of the Market
This section provides insight into the current reality of Enterprise in the workforce. It identifies and quantifies
obstacles, funding models, staffing models, deployment models, overall attitudes and adoption rates of
technologies in organizations.
Generational and Cultural Impacts
This section provides insight into how the age of personnel and the particularities of different corporate cultures
change the way Enterprise is perceived, managed, and implemented.
Worker Models for Enterprise
We begin at the beginning of organizational use of computers, and specifically, personal computers. This is an era where culture is typically about total protectionism. It’s all about me (and my department, if expanded), therefore functionally siloed as well. Organizationally, command and control dominates - top-down decision making, and no exceptions will be tolerated. Competition NEVER comes form within - planned obsolescence has not yet been heard of, it’s simply a matter of chasing and leading the competitive landscape, and largely as a reactionary rather than driving the market. State of the art technology is database, and siloed systems, from the 1980s. Information in the One-way Me/Enterprise era is still fairly siloed. Co-workers are curious enough to ask who has information, and where that information might live, but information is on a “need to know” basis, with independent libraries, typically built in proprietary and “fat client” oriented systems.
Team Me is the beginning of Knowledge Management, and became the state of the art in the 1990s. The “power” of “ME” is based on who I am within a community, and as an individual. Awareness of my skills, projects worked on, people I’ve interacted with, is being captured, and re-used to some degree, although in all but the most extreme cases, this is within fairly contained and closed communities. Trust data is being captured as a result, and it becomes easier for systems to find me as an “expert” or at least as a resource within the organization. This is the beginning of a recognition that the end results of work are being done by individuals and teams, and that the ability to re-assemble and re-use this “capital” is as important as being able to capture, document, and share “best practices” within an organization, and across teams/departments, to break down distance barriers in sharing knowledge, for example. Workflow has advanced in this model into EAI or Enterprise Application Integration, which is beginning to move towards standards, and an ability to move work both from person to person in an automated fashion, but to do system-level automated processing as well. Collaborative systems are exceedingly rare. Any “community” is closed - and trust needs to be “earned” in each new community, regardless of whether you have worked in the organization for 5, 10, or more years. Trust is not transferable to communities/teams except through the happy accident of having co-workers who you have worked with explicitly and in-person with are also within the new community, and can vouch for your reputation. Process automation has begun, but within functional silos - these are the early days of Workflow, and between cultural issues and the proprietary integration needed in this era, workflow and process concerns from a “knowledge worker” standpoint is quite rare. Workflow and communication tends to be one-way, pushed down the line, and little to know feedback loop (which we’d talk about has feedback and emergence in Enterprise ). The ability to discover new corporate information resources is quite limited, and search is siloed, or targeted, to specific teams.
Proactive Me, or Enterprise , is the beginning of the ability to always be connected, and a 24/7 working mindset - workers may be spread around the globe, and the systems they depend on should be available at any time. Web-based access to these systems is a major enabler, helping to drive this desire to compete at any time, all the time.
Individuals are further empowered to reach out to others in their organization, via their information systems, to collaborate on projects, but also to find “human resources” within the organization via Knowledge Management-oriented capabilities (as discussed on the prior slide).
Culture is beginning to shift, in that individuals are empowered to reach out and further, to be directly found and contacted from other co-workers. Departmental silos are falling away, and an interest in expanding the concept of the “team” is stretching out into the “outside world” of partners, suppliers and customers. Who I know, inside and outside of the organization, is as powerful as what I know - although surfacing the “who” component in systems is still in early days of adoption. Componentization and modular work is taking the ability collaborate over distances to a new level, as the ability to do work 24/7 and the rise of long-distance outsourcing of “knowledge work” is beginning to take hold.
Portals within enterprises are beginning to put a “meta-layer” on top of otherwise siloed systems, web-enabling systems and allowing users to (in theory) jump from a single point of access (the portal) into the systems that they would need access to in order to do their jobs. “Mashups” as we see in Enterprise have their roots here, although the contextual layering of data/information that you would get from a mashup is typically missing in this technical era. Information is more likely to be presented side by side, rather than overlaid or integrated, between systems.
Vortals (vertical industry portals, such as the automotive industry) and B2B (business-to-business) Marketplaces are opening up new business opportunities as competitors and partners begin to explicitly and publicly, although with secured access (not “total transparency”) collaborate on large projects, exchange and bid for pricing on needed supplies and partners, and in general, break out of “information hoarding” as competitive advantage.
Worker Models for Enterprise
In the Two-way Me model, communities don’t just exist, they are explicitly and purposefully created. Communities of Practice (COPs) and Communities of Interest (COIs) are mainstays of knowledge-driven, and Knowledge Management-oriented companies. KM is seen as a corporate goal, and an executive level position of the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) may be put in place, helping to provide a top-down level of support that would otherwise not typically exist. From the bottom-up and worker-side of the story, collaboration is seen as an asset, and contributions are measured both from an individual level, and their role in facilitating in or enabling collaboration between departments, teams, and even the outside world, whether with consultants, partners, suppliers or customers. “Collective Intelligence” is beginning to surface, although not in an automatic way, but rather from a proactive hunt to poll or otherwise ask communities to weigh in on discussions, or by doing very intensive, manual analysis of social network activity such as in e-mail traffic, to understand how work is ACTUALLY being done, rather than what the org chart might say.
Technology provides the “single point of access” (SPOA) in a more personalized way, honing portals/dashboards to focus more on the ability of an individual to create their own workspace than imposing a “corporate only” view as in earlier portal deployments. Underlying systems that are being unified into the portal interface remain siloed to a certain extent, although workflow capabilities and the rise of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are making it easier than ever before to integrate systems and provide contextual information sharing between systems, rather than requiring people to connect the dots between repositories through entirely manual efforts. Open source as a business model and technology development model is beginning to spark ideas within enterprise about the ability to large-scale collaboration, and change the timeframe of development to an ongoing improvement model, rather than protracted 1-3 year development cycles. Much confusion and doubt, however, that these models can actually work in enterprise settings.
Islands of We begin to bump the level of focus up into a larger team level, and explicitly looks at how fostering networking, and the ability to identify and wield networks (or communities) can drive significant benefits to the organization. The ability and desire to “profile” or identify “core competencies” of individuals is far more prevalent than ever before, and the information systems of the organization are being built to house/maintain at least static profiles, skills inventories, and resumes, if not moving into a dynamically generated and updated, living “expertise system.” Outsourcing continues to be rapidly adopted for lower level “knowledge work” as falling telecom prices and the bandwidth to move work around the globe increase the ability to do outsourcing more or less seamlessly. This is purely driven from a cost/expense standpoint, rather than leveraging expertise and the ability to have continuous work done 24/7 to speed Time To Market (TTM), although there are edge cases where that is true. Software systems, and physical goods are beginning to be oriented towards customization for individual customers, although for physical goods, the tenets of Lean Thinking in manufacturing are still largely focused on cleaning up lazy, or at least sub-optimized processes, rather than being able to produce exactly what customers want, at the time they want it. The beginnings of strategic use of software that would surface and make social interactions transparent, and result in emergent “wisdom” or intelligence rise to the surface is happening primarily in the outside or Business-to-Consumer (B2C) world, through the rapid adoption of blogs and public discussion forums. (Web or Enterprise), is not yet strategically deployed, particularly in both worlds of the inward-facing and outward-facing, or extended enterprise scenario. Marketing or customer service departments may be pulling the company from an engagement to the world perspective, or “professional services”-oriented teams inside the organization are the likely candidates for early adoption and success here.
Worker Models for Enterprise
Extended Me/Enterprise
Culture Component
Transparency
Participative/Engaged
Always On/In
Mass Customization
Agility
Competency-Driven Outsourcing
Embedded/Strategic Collective Intelligence
Technology Component
Strategic deliberate internal deployment of emergent and social software
Integration and Modular Programming
Extended Me, or Enterprise - this is the current state of the art, and as we’ve seen in our Market Intelligence research, it is most definitely early days for adoption. Although exactly how early, depends on how far you care to examine the impact of things such as Lean Thinking, Agile Software Development, and Systemics, all of which clearly pre-cursor the transparent, open and collaborative aspects of Enterprise we’ve laid forth here.
As we hope you have seen in the progression from the beginning of the use of personal computers through the stages outlined, there has been a fairly clear, towards a desire and ability to basically mix and match the capabilities of information systems to match the wide variety of business models that now exist. While we are highlighting here that Enterprise does have cultural components such as transparency, a participative and engaged community (workforce, customers, etc.), the agility to quickly adapt to changing environments (in the economy and otherwise) - it should be noted that we don’t believe that Enterprise means that ALL communication, collaboration, and interaction is ALWAYS transparent, with ALL potential voices being heard and acknowledged, and that only “wisdom” springs forth from the collective actions of all participants.
The potential to run to that extreme is, however, fully available in the Enterprise world now, and whether your organization sees value in running completely to that edge, or in a more moderate case, is up to you. Between our examination of the ongoing evolution of cultural, business and technical systems, our definition of Enterprise (or any other), and the frameworks such as SLATES and FLATNESSES that examine exactly what makes Enterprise a cohesive and useful system, clearly Enterprise has the key components and outcomes as illustrated on this slide, AS WELL AS the many features and functions of the majority of “prior era”systems, from a content or knowledge-centric point of view.
While this is a still evolving and emerging area of business thought and technology deployment, and far from perfect, the continuing move to standards, the likelihood that it is easier than ever before to include a far larger “crowd” in the collaboration and deliberation of ideas, via Enterprise
Enterprise Readiness
Culture
Propensity for success or failure
Measuring change management
(Business) Strategy
Putting the E in Enterprise
ROI fundamentals
Beyond a pilot
Competitive edge
Technology/Infrastructure
Aligned with and support goals and objectives
Bolsters culture
Changes culture
Technology
Culture
Strategy
AIIM Certificate Program
Strategy
as a Practice
as a Project
Master
The AIIM Certificate Program consists of a Strategy Track, a Practitioner Track, a Specialist Track, and a Master Track. There are three designations, Practitioner, Specialist, and Master.
Enterprise Practitioner Track
There are 10 modules in the Enterprise Practitioner Track, as shown in the visual mapping here. Each module builds on the other, although in this online edition, you should feel free to dive into the sections that most interest you, directly. Bear in mind that we are setting context throughout, and that the evolution of this thinking may be lost on you if you skip past the foundational information in the early modules.
Enterprise Specialist Track
Assessing
Business
Need
Positioning Technology
Alternatives
Implementing
Enterprise
Making the Case
for
Enterprise
Enterprise
Governance
Assessing
Organizational
Readiness
Users and User
Involvement
Integrating
Enterprise
Standards
Rollout
There are 10 modules in the Enterprise Specialist Track, as shown in the visual mapping here. Each module builds on the other, although in this online edition, you should feel free to dive into the sections that most interest you, directly. Bear in mind that we are setting context throughout, and that the evolution of this thinking may be lost on you if you skip past the foundational information in the early modules.
AIIM Training & Education
